Project Green Thumbs: It’s not too late to start your veggie garden!

Confession: I gave serious consideration to planting only tomatoes and basil this year. Why waste time on the other stuff when all I really want is bruschetta, right? Well, when my schedule suddenly opened up last month, I thought I may as well make good use of my time and dirt.

But you know what I did? I planted 12 tomato and six basil plants in my front yard (more on that later), and a few obligatory cucumbers in the back garden. And that was about it. It wasn’t until last week that I got any seeds sewn.

The good news? The seeds are sprouting and the veggies I planted just a couple weeks ago are growing like weeds. I write all this to say: It’s NOT too late to start a veggie garden. Grab starter seedlings from a local nursery for plants like tomatoes, peppers, squash–produce that needs a good while to mature. But for beans, leafy greens, herbs, radishes, there’s plenty of time to start from seed.

If nothing else, promise me you’ll get a couple big pots and grow basil and tomato. They’re the best thing about summer, I’m sure!

The smartest gardening thing I ever did: Planting herbs on my front porch. Walking from the kitchen to pinch cilantro, basil, thyme and oregano is easy even after dark.

Cucumbers a week or two after planting. This year I put marigolds in the garden box as opposed to keeping them in separate pots. Marigolds help ward off harmful bugs like aphids.

Since these little flowers kicked off, I may get some faux fleurs to adorn the pots.

I absolutely advocate stuffed squash blossoms with goat cheese! I took this recipe and used it for the batter (perfect!) and then adapted the stuffing – http://www.thekitchn.com/recipe-fried-squash-blossoms-57209For the stuffing, I did about 1/2 C. of goat cheese, some parmesan (I didn't measure), basil, oregano, and enough milk to smooth out the mixture so it was easily spreadable/stuffable. Enjoy! I'm jealous…I want more squash blossoms!